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Thursday, June 26, 2008

I love books almost as much as I love food, so of course I immediately said yes last March when I was offered an advance copy of a new book called Comfort Food, "about a celebrity chef about to turn 50." The timing was interesting, too, since I'll be turning 40 (!!) next month and had just been contacted by a production company about developing a show for Food Network.*

When my copy arrived, I was surprised to discover that Comfort Food is actually a novel, and not a memoir as I had for some reason thought. I was hooked from the first paragraph — which mentions five kinds of birthday cake — and stayed up way past my bedtime that night reading. This is the kind of book you want to both devour and savor, and after I finished the last page I was tempted to turn right back to the beginning and start all over so I could keep hanging out with the characters. When I saw the unabridged audio version at the library the other day (I'm addicted to audio books!) I immediately snapped it up - and was doubly delighted to discover that it's read by Barbara Rosenblat, one of my favorite recording artists. The book is just as delicious the second time around.

Kate Jacobs' first novel was the runaway bestseller The Friday Night Knitting Club, which I'm looking forward to reading. (Have you read it?) Kate says that Comfort Food is about "food, family, friendships, and overcoming frustrations," and that's all I'm going to tell you except that the book made me laugh, cry — and hungry. If you get annoyed when the characters in novels continually go out to eat but the author never lets you know what they order (or they never seem to eat at all!) then you're going to love this book. It revolves entirely around food. The characters don't just go to the farmers' market — they discuss what they could do with all the fresh bounty while they're there. Gus, the main character, "loved to talk about food. Late at night, if she couldn't sleep, she would read cookbooks out loud to herself until she relaxed."

Ready for more than a taste? I have two hardcover copies of Comfort Food to give away, and each of them comes with a special bonus - a handy dandy canvas totebag emblazoned with the gorgeous book cover art. It's the perfect size for packing your groceries, goodies from the farmers' market, or practically anything else. I use mine constantly.

Just leave a comment in this post between now and next Thursday, July 3rd, and tell us about your favorite comfort foods. I'll randomly pick two winners and announce them a day or two (or three or four) after that. Sorry, but the books can only be shipped to U.S. addresses.

I can't wait to see your comments. And if you're like me and love to read about what other people eat, check out my Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant book review post from last year, where dozens of readers revealed what they secretly eat when they're all alone in the kitchen. If you haven't contributed yet, please feel free to add to the wonderful list.

* I've decided this isn't something I'm going to pursue now, but I sure was thrilled to be asked!

Hi - I did read Friday Night Knitting Club and it had all the same great character development and details on the subject matter. It was awesome! I now am thinking about starting to knit! =) Sounds like Kate Jacobs has nailed it again.

My favorite comfort food is get this... Korean chinese-style noodles called Jjajang Myun with my mom's kimchi. I've traveled the world trying this dish at different Korean and Korean-chinese establishments. My mom just makes it the best, and I've heard it from others too!

Well, I am one of those girls that can never make up her mind. The same can be said about comfort food. There is always mashed potatoes, homemade vegetable soup, and fried chicken. However, my sister-in-law is the best cook in Tennessee. She makes the best fresh cut corn, fresh blackeyed peas, and cornbread. This reminds me of home, and love. She always cooks them for me when I visit.

My most favorite comfort food revolves around breakfast because of the way my house smells after cooking. As I was growing up we would visit my grandparents who lived on a farm so they always had fresh eggs and home cured bacon. Breakfast was always fried bacon, fried eggs that were cooked in the bacon grease, toast and coffee boiled on the stove. Every time I make bacon and eggs at home, that aroma takes me back to a time to being a kid of no worries. Even my clothing would become enveloped in the smell of my grandparents house. What a great memory that aroma will trigger.

My favorite comfort food? What a challenge to identify just one! Okay, okay...at this moment I'm going to say that it's a four-and-a-half-minute soft boiled egg, with the little bread soldiers and lots of butter.

Tap, tap, tap goes the spoon, shattering the egg shell. Off comes the top half inch of the egg, a little pocket of tender egg white my first bite, and a promising hint of deep golden yellow in the rest of the shell. A pat of butter goes into the molten yolk, followed by a pinch of salt. It melts unctuously. The first bread soldier dips in, gently spilling the yolk. Ahhh! What could be more perfect than the bliss of a soft boiled egg? It all gets eaten and savored, until my spoon scrapes the inside of the shell, retrieving every morsel.

Bonus points if the soldiers are made from light rye, or a multigrain bread with garlic rubbed over the toast before buttering.

hmmmm.lets see. Honestly I think my favorite comfort foodis home made mac and cheese. I haven't had mine in a while due to my new baby having allergies to soy,so I can't eatany soy at all. My mac and cheese recipe is dairy free so full of soy *sigh*. Someday I'll have it again!LOL

I'd have to say my favorite comfort food is new potatoes and peas with a white sauce. It's an old recipe my mom got from her Better Homes and Gardens cookbook (which I have an updated copy of myself). Enjoying this dish was not just a mealtime event. Mom made sure we got to experience the food we ate, from planting, dragging the hose out to water, weeding and finally harvesting from the garden, we knew what was involved in bringing the food to the table. Not only that, but occasionally we had to run to the barn to skim some milk from the bulk tank for the cream sauce. I often had to remind myself to not eat all the peas while I was shucking them because they tasted so good at dinner. We had lots of meals from the garden and I can't wait to recreate this dish from my own garden someday.

One of my favorite comfort foods is a casserole made up. Hashbrowns, chicken, cream of chicken soup, whatever spices and herbs are on hand, then covered with cheese. Creamy and cheesy. What is better than that?

My very favorite comfort food is a big dish of pasta shells tossed with broccoli, olive oil and butter, and lots of garlic and Parmesan cheese. And no one else likes it (except one of the cats), so I get it all! Not that I'm greedy or anything . . .

In the tenth grade my girl friend taught me how to make a perfect egg salad sandwich: two tender hard-boiled eggs, cooled and cracked underwater, peeled and chopped at room temperature and mixed with the best mayonnaise and a little salt. Sliced fresh bread. Nothing more. For extra therapy, add a glass of chocolate milk. After more than fifty years, I wonder if Nancy also still makes these egg salad sandwiches.

My favorite comfort food is my great grandmother's corned beef and cabbage. Deliciously tender and salty meat plus almost mushy carrots, potatoes, cabbage, and turnips. But the best part is my grandmother's homemade spicy mustard, which gets spread on every piece of corned beef and vegetable. She has made this dinner for my birthday every year since I was little, and nobody makes it like her! :)

My favorite comfort food -- hmmm, definately something baked. Either a thick, cheesy pasta dish or my monster cookies (which are quite similar to your recipe). Monster cookies have the added benefit of dough sampling while baking. In either case, there are delicious baking aromas to tide me over until the prize comes from the oven.

A few come to mind depending on thetime of year.......basamati rice all the time, warm garden fresh tomatoes sliced in a sandwich,home mad pasta fagioli soup..........Fresh corn with lemon and chili(reminds me of my dad)......and my all time favorite growing up was...TaDah...Big Hunk candy bars. Fun to remember!!

One of my comfort foods, which I never make for myself but which conjures up all the love I felt from my mother and maternal grandmother, is homemade custard. Any of its commercial forms will do at a restaurant - creme brulee, flan, etc. I do make my own chocolate pudding from scratch, and eat it warm for comfort sometimes....

Ground beef hash. A meal that I never liked and now can't get enough of. Potatoes cut into small pieces and pan fried with butter and onions. Add the ground beef with some garlic, salt, pepper and Lowry's seasoning. Even better with a fried egg from my hens on top.

Ravioli or lasagna - but rewally, any kind of baked pasta with a really good tomato sauce and loads of cheese is comfort food for me. Find a way to add in some shrimp, and I've died and gone to heaven.

As 70'sish as it is, my mom's tuna casserole. Oh and her meatloaf, no one makes it as good as hers! Ah, but pork chops in sauerkraut and tomato stew with mashed potatoes is also great. I could go on and on!As for Friday Night Knitting Club, read it even if you don't knit it sounds a lot like this book you described. You don't need to knit to love it but it sure helps :-)

Frozen fruit salad. But not any frozen fruit will do. It has to be from my grandmother's basement freezer, which is filled with pints and quarts of peaches, sour cherries, strawberries, and blueberries that she picks and preserves in Southern Michigan.

yummmmm...comfort food! I think the ultimate is homemade chicken and dumplings. They way we make them is a little time consuming but worth it.

(I use all organic ingredients)Fill a stock pot with chicken broth. Simmer chicken breasts in broth for 2-3 hours. Take out chicken and shred. Put chicken back in and add corn and peas, a dash of garlic, basil, salt and pepper. Make up a batch of scratch homemade buttermilk biscuts. (or cheat and use them from a can. I always go homemade) Bring chicken mixture to a rolling boil. Drop in spoonfuls of biscut batter. Reduce heat and simmer for 20-30 minutes until dumplings are cooked through. Dish up big bowls of this stick to your ribs comfort food and top with cheese.

When I lived in Laramie I cooked this meal 3 times a week for 6-10 WyoTech boys. I started with one student at my doorstep and then the word spread about home cookin' Before I knew it I had table full of students. I never once asked for help with the grocery tab. But every week there would be some bit of ingrediants dropped off at my doorstep.

I was glad to be able to help ease the homesickness of a few students. Everyone of them said the meal reminded them of home.

On cold, dark mornings growing up, my wonderful mother often made me a bowl of cream of wheat to face the day. Mom used to get out the Hershey's strawberry syrup and squirt beautiful designs into the perfectly piping hot cereal; my favorites were the butterfly and the daisy. She also used to serve me and my sisters nachos off a plastic plate promoting Disney's The Little Mermaid while we took a bath. So... yeah, my comfort food of choice is either cream of wheat with Hershey's strawberry syrup or nachos. Go figure.

When it's winter, you cannot beat a hearty bowl of soup. During summer - anything with wild berries (forageing for berries in the forest/on the meadows is very comforting itself).And chocolate, of course, all year round :)

Potatoes. In any shape or form. Mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, fried hash browns, oven-roasted red potatoes with fresh herbs, twice baked potatoes (my favorite), french fried potatoes, potato chips and of course every single member of my family requests my Grandmother's potato salad at every family get together. Only my cousin has come close to mastering it.

Farmgirl doing a show? That would be terrific! I'm not sure where you'd find the time. My favorite comfort food has to be mashed potatoes & gravy served with good ol' fried chicken. But since I'm trying to eat healthier these days, they're both something I haven't had in ages. Thanks for the chance to win. Reading is my favorite thing when I have spare time.Linda

I'm another mac & cheese comfort-food foodie. Mmmm. When I want to feel like a little kid again, I love the Kraft boxes (oh no!) which I have to mix up to the special method used by my brother and I when we were kids. The rest of the time, I love a super-cheesy homemade sauce that includes some sharp cheese and plenty of fresh herbs. :D

My favorite comfort food always reminds me of having dinner with my family while we were growing up. I LOVE tuna & noodles on a pile of homemade lumpy mashed potatoes. My mom always tried to sneak peas in to the tuna and noodles and I would always find everyone and pick them out.

I'm sorry, but I can't tell you about my favorite comfort food because I don't have a US address: I live in Puerto Rico. Of course, USPS delivers here, and it costs no more that shipping to Boston, but heck, it's not US.

Good Morning!! I recently moved to eleven acre soon to be farm. My husband and I bought this land three years ago with dreams of a small farm. It has been adjustment. I do feel lonely at times and find comfort in baking. I LOVE SOUP,BREADS AND APPLE PIE. I also find comfort in making a recipe for jewish apple cake my precious grandmother left me. When I bake it I can almost feel my grandmother. Thank you for your blog that brings me so much joy,laughter and comfort to my life. I check it almost everyday. SO funny I am almost done reading Friday Night Knitting Club. Love Tracey Stavros (Trace4J@aol.com)P.s I have 13 guinea hens and 3 chickens. I am yearning for sheep and so enjoy your stories and pictures!!

When I want comfort food, nothing can beat macaroni and cheese--the more cheese the better. It's my first time to post, but I've been reading for quite a while. I always enjoy your blog. Keep up the good work!

Cake, hands down, would be my comfort food. With buttercream frosting. But it has to be homemade cake and frosting, nothing from a can. There's a really good cake book called 'The Cake Doctor' that uses a box mix and other additions to make scrumptious cakes. I don't usually have cake in my house because I'll sneak away to eat it when the kids aren't looking. Hard to set a good example of healthy eating when you've got frosting smeared around your mouth!

First I want to say - thank you Susan for NOT doing the food network thing - I'd actually have something I regretted about not having cable or satelliet tv if you were ON television! Comfort food - well since food is often my comfort it is hard to narrow my list or my hips.Tex-Mex lover that I am - have to say - stacked up enchiladas - either shredded chicken or ground meat, chopped onions, shredded cheese plenty of green sauce - heated just until the cheese begins to bubble and eaten with saltine crackers - yeah baby- now that's comfort! For almost instant comfort - Blue Belle ice cream almost any flavor.

My biggest comfort food is one of the simplest things I know how to make - melted cheese in a tortilla. I'm sure it stems from my mom making them for me as an afternoon snack - but to this day, even with an upset stomach - that's all that sounds good when I'm really down and out!

Close runner up are the ginger molasses cookies that the farm I used to work at makes. SO good with a glass of cold milk on a HOT summer day!

This is my first post...although I enjoy every little part of your blog. Hey, I just turned 60 last week and fully embrace the idea of 60 being the "new" 40. My comfort food is soup....I have a bunch of recipes and it just depends on how comforted I need to be. Thank you bunches. Blessings, Lee

OK, the usual... mashed potatoes (swirl in some peas); chicken soup with homemade broth; mac and cheese. But the other evening, I toasted an English muffin, put some lightly salted butter on top, followed with peanut butter and poured some honey on top of it all. It just hit the spot!Alice

Comfort food-chocolate. Need I say more? I am currently reading and enjoying The Friday Night Knitting Club. I am glad to see she has written another book. I look forward to reading it also. Wow food network-that's exciting. Life is good isn't it? Please do a gardening segment with your show. Just small tidbits on growing vegetables, fresh herbs, etc. to use in your cooking.

I've often thought you should do a food show...as long as they shoot it on the farm, and we get to see little glimpses of all of the things we've come to love by immersing ourselves in your daily blog, which is really more like a daily novella, complete with rich characters, drama as compelling as any james heriot tale, and compassion enough to feed every soul in the world.Everyday, I anticipate the next chapter from farmgirl, as much as i anticipated the comfort of my lebanese grandmother's kibbeh--every sunday after church--as a girl in indiana. Our family car would pull into her driveway, and the sweet smell of allspice would alight on the air as it escaped the breezeway right outside her kitchen. Though the taste of what my young, non-lebanese friends would later liken to "lebanese white castle" (GASP) is something so exotic and familiar, i can barely describe it, i've often wondered if it was the delicate balance of bulghar, onion, lamb and allspice that comforted me everytime i stuffed a handful into my pita, and ultimately into my mouth...or if it was the rhythmic and reliable sound of my grandmother's gold bangle bracelets, clanking against one another as she carefully mixed the ingredients in her gigantic prep bowl--dipping her hand into the small icewater bowl beside it, sprinkling a bit on the mixture to keep it from sticking, and help draw out extra fat, then kneading the mound until magically, every ingredient was perfectly balanced, perfectly seasoned, and lovingly baked or fried as my large, and loud family filled the kitchen, breezeway and dining room to share sunday lunch.Here's to my grandmother amelia, and the pure rapture of simpler times.

My very favorite comfort food is a warm buttery biscuit with cold butter and grape jelly. It just melts in your mouth!

I'm reading the Friday Night Knitting Club right now, and it is a wonderful book. I even picked up my knitting again. I'm looking forward to reading her newest book...maybe with a plate of hot biscuits!

Comfort foods...mmm...mashed potatoes with cream cheese, homemade soup, those carrots that you cook around a brisket, and a decent brownie...ahh...well, separately of course, they're kind of weird as a meal all together...hope I'm picked!

Well, first, congratulations on being approached by the Food Network! It would be really, really weird for me to turn on my t.v. and see Farmgirl Susan making a Swiss chard recipe or something, especially since you've never even posted a photo of yourself and I have no idea what you look like. Assuming I have the Food Network, which I don't.

My favorite comfort food is always potatoes. In any form, but mashed seems particularly comforting. And even if I don't win, I'm going to have to seek this book out. The food descriptions are why "Farmer Boy" by Laura Ingalls Wilder was one of my favorite books as a kid. Now there was a family that ate well!

Comfort foods... Exceedingly garlic mashed potatoes loaded up with freshly shredded parmaesan, romano and asaigo cheeses. Oh, and leave the skins on. Either red skin or yellow skins. Bonus is that any not scarfed down can be used for potato bread!

Although, the go to comfort food when there isn't time to cook is cheddar cheese. ;)

Wow! What an awesome post - The Food Network? What an honor for you! and how cool is that!!!

Just reading the comments made me think, "Yeah! That could be a favorite comfort food for me, too!", but I think my hands-down favorite comfort food would have to be a slice (only one???) of freshly-baked, homemade bread. Is there anything on earth better than that?

Thanks for a delightful contest and a wonderful blog - it is so much fun!

I think my MOST favorite comfort food (have many) would have to be roast leg of lamb with homemade mint jelly. My mom was raised on a large sheep ranch in WY and lamb was a staple for me growing up. Now I am raising my own sheep on the very ranch where she lived. - Marcia in Wyoming

Oh my. Reading about everyone else's favorite comfort foods has me really indecisive! I thought I knew, but now I'm going back and forth.

A good home-cooked comfort food in my house now is mashed potatoes with kale and sausage mixed in (*drool*), but cream of wheat or oatmeal with milk and honey is also comforting. When I was slightly younger, the most comforting thing for me to eat was instant mashed potatoes mixed with Stovetop stuffing. Also, anything my mother used to make me when I was a kid is a comfort now (tuna noodle casserole, mashed potatoes and green beans, baked spaghetti).

Tomato soup with a grilled cheese sandwich always makes my day a little better. I also like grits (Southern girl here!) with lots of pepper and a dab of butter. Tuna salad is my go to comfort food in the summer and mashed potatoes are the most perfect food in the world.

Any stew will do. But when I was growing up my requested birthday dinner was always Ham and Scalloped potatoes. It was work for my mother to make for the 8 of us (peeling and slices enough potatoes and the onions) but with leftover ham from Christmas Dinner there was always plenty to go around. YUM!

My favorite comfort food to prepare for my family is Mac and Cheese. My three year old and I embarked on a "Mac and Cheese tasting" the last two years, where I made every conceivable type of Mac and Cheese recipe I could find. My husband's favorite comfort food is meatloaf and mashed potatoes. As for myself, if someone else is cooking, it's hands down my dad's chicken soup with homemade egg noodles. If I've got to make it myself- well many a sorrow has been drowned in a pint of Ben and Jerry's Phish Food ( :

Fun to see so many different ideas of comfort food! My first choice would be my Italian grandmom's manicotti, but if I have to cook it myself, a grilled cheese sandwich with a pickle and a glass of milk.

Wow, I'ld love to have a copy of that book. I am always telling people I prefer peasant food to fancy cooking. My two favorite comfort foods are 1) braised short-ribs over egg noodles, especially the day after you braise them and 2) Arroz con Pollo, the Cuban comfort food. It is so warm and filling and flavorful. I' have a great recipe if anyone wants it.

For me, nothing beats Swanson chicken pot pies baked in the oven and turned out over rice when I'm looking for comfort food. It takes me back to winter evenings when I was a kid, pulled up to the round kitchen table, my mother working around the kitchen....quick, easy and surrounded by the comfort of memories!

One of my favorite comfort foods is one my mom makes. It's called hamburger gravy, and it's kinda like S.O.S. meets sausage gravy. Here's a description my mom (who group up not far from you in Springfield, MO) sent me on how to make it:

*****Growing up on the fifties with a stay at home mom and little income for eating out or gourmet meals,my mother who was a very good cook, would come up with some creative meals that, to the way ofthinking at that time, were healthy, nutritious and filling.My brother's and my favorite meal was hamburger gravy over a heap of mashed potatoes.Not too many kids don't love mashed potatoes and hamburger anything, although, my lovelydaughter didn't eat mashed potatoes until she was a teenager.

I had forgotten about hamburger gravy, probably because of growing health issues as I was gettingolder. My mother was visiting us and happened to be making a meal just for the kids. Sheprepared the family famous hamburger gravy ( known in some circles as S.O.S).

Of course, my two darling children loved it and it became high on the list of things for their momto make them.

Here is the recipe, if there is such a thing, or at least directions:

I lb. ground meat (the less lean, the better gravy)

Brown meet in skillet until cooked. While juice, or grease is still very hot, add enough flour to soakup juice or grease (at lease 1/4-1/2 cup)

As soon as flour is absorbed and while temperature is still high, add milk, at least 1/2 cup. After that is blended, reduce the temperature to simmer. As flour thickens, add more milk to desired thickness. you add too much milk, turn the heat up and it will thicken again. Add salt and especially pepper to tasted.

Oh gosh Susan...three come to mind, first homemade mac and cheese, gooey cheese sauce topped with cracker crumbs and piping hot out of the oven...never fails to satisfy. But two others come to mind, a soft cooked egg on toast, something my mom made me when I was young and to this day comforts me and brings back happy childhood memories, and lastly, chocolate chip cookies warm out of the oven!

Hi Susan,My favourite food is a Norwegian cookie called "Gjende kjeks" (Gjende is the brand name and kjeks actually means biscuit - but it is so sweet, it's more like a cookie). This, and a glass of Champagnebrus (pop, also Norwegian, nothing to do with champagne except maybe the colour and the bubbles), can brighten any gloomy day when the world is cruel :-) I am actually Danish but my Mum is from Norway so it's easy to see where I get my taste in comfort food...

My favorite comfort foods reflect where I've lived and what I love: - pickled ginger (gari) is one of my all time favorite snacks, even if there isn't sushi involved. I grew up in SoCal and there's a heavy asian influence there.

- Mom's Guacamole is actually a recipe in my family cook book. It's quick, easy, and a perfect "I don't feel like cooking I just want to sit here and cry" food.

- The Chocolate Chip cookies only my husband can get right. His job takes him away a lot but when he's home he makes these perfect chocolate chip cookies. Despite years of trying (even following his recipe) I've never gotten them right. Having those cookies means he's home and we're a family again. Perfect comfort.

My all time favorite comfort food is mashed potatoes with lots of gravy. I grew up with a Swedish mother and they never met a potato they didn't like. I love potatoes in any form but mashed is the most comforting when I am feeling down, sad, whatever...

I Looove FRESH whipped cream! I could eat it with a spoon. Take out the hand mixer, pour the cream to be whipped and mix! Then when fluffy add a bit of sugar and natural vanilla, mix just a bit, and then devour with fresh strawberries and a spoon for extra whipped cream enjoyment.

My all time favorite is probably chicken soup with homemade noodles. When I make the noodles, I'm strongly reminded of making them with my mom, of my grandmother making them, and that the recipe was my great grandmother's.

I also like making & eating deviled eggs. The first time I made them was with my great grandmother. Plus they're good for all meals!

My favorite comfort food is pasta carbonara made with bacon rather than pancetta. I learned to make it in Italy from a friend's husband so in addition to being soul-satisfyingly tasty it also reminds me of my friends. When I visit them, far too infrequently, I always ask him to make it.

My very favorite is a yummy beef pot roast, with carrots and onions roasted along side. Then served with creamy, buttery mashed potatoes and gravy made from the meat juices. And if you throw in a homemade dinner roll, I will have died and gone to heaven. And since I'm totally in dream world here, you can throw in some of my mom's amazing carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. YOWZA!

My favorite comfort food is actually a drink. I find nothing more refreshing and comforting than a tall glass of milk. After a hard day at work or a week hiking in the backcountry, the thing I crave most is milk.

I enjoyed Alone in the Kitchen with the Eggplant. It's always fun to read about people's feeling and adventures with food. Food has always been fuel to me until the last few years - now I found the farmers market and am in tasty heaven!And it great to know I'm not alone...reading about others gives us confirmation or is it permission I seek? Now if I could just find someone who eats mashed potatoes enlightened with creamy cheese and fresh chives - for dinner.I check your site each week to watch the puppies grow and play and wonder how you keep away from them (and keep them clean).

I just purchased Friday Night Knitting Club but haven't had a chance to start it. I'm definitely going to add Comfort Food to my list of books to get/read. For me, comfort food is my homemade chili with biscuits or my mom's vegetable beef soup. Even in the heat of the summer, it just makes me feel good!

And I think you would be great for Food Network! Let us know if you change your mind and decide to do it. I'd watch for sure! :-)

My favorite comfort food? Hmmm.... there are so many....Being raised in Indiana is to believe in comfort food as a religion. I'll have to go with the first thing that popped into my head: Meatloaf and mashed potatoes. But fried chicken was a close second (with A-1 sauce of course).

My favorite comfort foods are hands down 1) my mom's fabulous stuffing that she makes for Thanksgiving - we have had her double the recipe so there would be plenty for leftover eating! - with her fabulous gravy - great when you warm them up later Thanksgiving night and stand at the stove eating them and 2) fluffy mashed potatoes with homemade gravy. Gee, all carbs for me - guess that's why Atkins never worked in this house! ;-)

When I still lived down south, I would head to a local Black Eye Pea restaurant for Chicken Fried Chicken and Mashed Potatoes when I was down. I'd then follow it up with a hot fudge sundae with pecans at Dairy Queen.

Unfortunately, while I can still get Dairy Queen, there's no Black eye Pea restaurant in the Northwest. Needless to say, I'm rather bereft! Now I have to make my own comfort food, which often takes the form of grits and bacon for dinner.

Mmmm. It depends on what I need comfort for. (smile) for instance last night's comfort food was bacon, leek and tomato macaroni and cheese. That's a deep level comfort food for a bad day AND pms hitting at the same time. Other days and levels of comfort a lovely latte is comfort food.And then there is mashed potatos. Or scalloped potatos and onion baked with ham and cheese.On a sweet level - any kind of shortbread with a really good cup of tea. LOL! I'd love to read the book. Birthday cake can be comfort food too. . . especially if there are that many different kinds. ;)

Can I just say all of the above? :) Mac & cheese from a box, homemade rice pudding, my grandmother's chicken and noodles, or the vegetables (especially onions!) that are cooked with pot roast--the pot roast isn't bad either. :)

Isn't it funny the way we try to recreate tastes from our childhoods? I can't make my mom's meatloaf without making baked potatoes and green beans with it because that is what she always served it. Who knows? Her mom may have always served those together as well. :)

My comfort foods are from my childhood. My mom was an excellent cook and was constantly baking. I can still see her in my minds eye, wearing an apron, flour on the front. Every weekend, she'd bake a pie, then she'd give me the pieces of leftover pie crust. We'd roll it flat and she'd help me spread butter, brown sugar and cinnamon on it. Then we'd roll them up, slice them and bake them in the warm oven. She called them pinwheels. It brings back such a fond memory.

My other favorite comfort food involves the same aroma, but it's oatmeal. Not the quick kind. Slow cooked oats, with milk, butter, cinnamon, a pinch of nutmeg and a handful of raisins. Anytime I smell cinnamon, I immediately think about my wonderful mother. She passed in October 1984, at the age of 41.

My favorite comfort food is mac and cheese, no contest. I like it plain, or better yet with crispy bacon mixed in and lots of toasted bread crumbs on top, yummy! If I don't have the time to make it from scratch, a big bowl of air popped popcorn with lots of butter and black truffle salt can do the trick as well.I loved Friday Night Knitting Club, and can't wait to read Comfort Food!

First of all, it turns out I'm older than you! I turned 40 in March--and ate my way through Morocco in celebration. 40's not that bad (so far), and I hear it's the new 30, which we've already managed, so there you go. Happy (early) birthday!

As for comfort food, someone else wrote about soft-boiled eggs, describing a method of eating them that I'm not familiar with. Here's my way:

Cook the eggs just about 4 and a half minutes, until the whites are mostly set but the yolks are still runny. Plunge into cold water just until cool enough to handle. Meanwhile, make some toast and get out the butter. Now it gets weird. Tear the hot toast into bite-sized pieces and put them in a small bowl or large mug. Toss in a pat of butter and the scraped out contents of the eggs. Salt, pepper, and mush the whole mixture up, then eat with a spoon. This is what my mom used to make me when I was sick as a kid. It still works.

Mashed potatoes is one of my big comfort foods, but honestly my biggest one is the only thing I inherited from my father.... Apple Sauce sandwiches. Just white bread, butter, then apple sauce. I'm weird I know, but I really love them!

White food... no not 'white people's food' although it ptobably is somewhat since I was raised in white and snowy Minnesota. Potatoes, Turkey, Chicken, white gravy, cole slaw... the perfect meal is Thanksgiving yummy to my tummy!Rooth

A perfectly-roasted (free-range of course) chicken. The best part is that first piece of crispy skin eaten in the kitchen (chef's perks!).

Once the chicken has been devoured the comfort lives on, since all the bones go into a stock pot with tons of vegetables, and it simmers for hours on the stove filling the house with the most wonderful aromas.

The stock then becomes delicious canellini bean soup with a smoked ham hock, onions, celery, garlic, carrots, potatoes, hot italian sausage, and a bushel full of tuscan kale, swiss chard and beet tops fresh from the garden. Grate some nice parmesan cheese on the top of the steaming bowl and you're in heaven!

Stewed chicken with egg-drop dumplings, and if I'm particularly desperate for comforting, I've even been know to make mashed potatoes too! When you need a good dose of comfort, there's no way you can over do it on carbs!

Special Toast and Red Zinger tea. Special Toast is toast (usually sourdough) with butter and cinnamon and sugar cut into triangles. Whenever I didn't feel well my mom would make me Special Toast. The Red Zinger tea takes me back to one morning when I walked out to the bus stop, the school bus came, and I decided I wasn't going to school anymore (about 1st grade) and marched myself back into the house. My mom filled a little teapot with Red Zinger and we sat and had tea and talked about why I didn't want to go to school.

Great recipes, posts about books, pictures of fluffy dogs and farm life...dare I call this a comfort blog!

Avocados are both my comfort food and what I should not be left in the kitchen alone with (because I will eat an entire one and go looking for more)! Even better is a hot plate of huevos rancheros — avocados and eggs and cheese and beans and salsa ... *drool*

Mmmmm, my fave comfort food is Shepherd's Pie. Ground beef with peas and carrots covered in a layer of buttery mashed potatoes! I like to add a bunch of curry to the beef mixture, delicious!!! Cheap and easy to make- anyone can do it.

Okay- so mine sounds like a strange one, but it really is comforting and delicious. My mom was responsible for getting me hooked on this one when i was little. Saltines with butter and jelly. Singles or double deckers depending on just how much comfort you need. Yum!

(ps. your recipe for mexican monkey cake comes in a very close second!)

Recently, I made one of my childhood favourites for my boyfriend and myself -- (veggie)mince with condensed cream of mushroom soup over egg noodles. My mom used to make it when I was growing up, and we always called it 'Glop.'

We felt sort of embarrassed as we were shoveling it down, but the next day my boyfriend went out to buy more cream of mushroom soup and made it again for himself! Crazy.

My favorite comfort food is something my family calls egg noodles. My parents are immigrants from Austria. They both came here in the 50's. My mom came with her parents and they were obviously very poor at the time. One meal they'd have is wide noodles, potatoes and onion with a couple eggs cracked into it while cooking.

I have to say that I love comfort food and have a couple of favorites. One I just made last week. Green beans cooked with bacon. My grandma used to make these with fresh garden green beans cooked in a pressure cooker and they were SO good. I cook them on the stove with just a little bacon added to the water. Also, my moms baked macaroni and cheese is the best!

As a child, Comfort came from a crater of real mashed potatoes, slightly lumpy, and infused with melted butter and wholemilk. Filled with dark, rich, hamburger gravy (in the days when lean ground beef was $.35 a pound) it was a mainstay that my mom made for my brothers and me. Even today at $4 a pound, I prefer it and the memories over anything else.

This is a tough question, but I think my favorite comfort food is vegan mac and cheese, otherwise known as mac and yeast or nutch pasta. I'm not a vegan, and I love normal mac and cheese too. But, I learned how to cook in cooperatives while I was in college, and now in graduate school, and I really love the hippie version of mac and cheese. It reminds me of comfy community dinners. You make it using nutritional yeast among other things, and it really doesn't taste like mac and cheese at all. But, I love it. And, my boyfriend hates it, so I can only make it when he's not around.

My favorite comfort food meal is my mom's Swedish meatballs, carrots, and mashed potatoes. It has always been what I choose if I am asked what I would like for my "Last Supper" (meaning the last meal before I left for college, got married, on the last night of a trip home to visit with all the kids, etc.) Now I make it for my 6 kids and they love it, too! :)

Deviled eggs - the right amount of salty, sweet, and sour. A required tradition at any family gathering or holiday. Chock full of childhood memories.When I was young, my uncle and I used to compete to see who could eat the most. We'd each sneak one from the platter throughout the day, and then pile them onto our plate at meal times, keeping tally about how many we had consumed. One year at Easter, when the family did not gather, my uncle sent me a photo of a tray of deviled eggs the Easter Bunny had left for him. I was seething.

I taught a cooking class called Comfort Foods a coupla months after 9/11 happened. The class was extremely well-attended and EVERYONE wanted a new Meatloaf recipe! Bruce Aidelle's recipe from his beer cookbook is the best around if you want to fuss a little--it's got beer of course in but the thing that makes it really really good is the french bread sop (bread soaked in milk) that binds it and keeps it super moist.

SO I know it's not original, but Meatloaf, Garlic Mashed Potatoes with cream, and pie for dessert. Doesn't matter what kind!

Wow, Food Network! I sure wish you would do a show for them, but I totally understand.

When I'm sad I make chocolate chip cookies and eat them with milk. When I'm sick or tired, it's pasta (in pretty much any form), grits & eggs (for this Southern girl), or my new found comfort food of risotto. Creamy, carb goodness...

I am a sugar girl, myself, so comfort food for me is chocolate. My grandmother, my mom and now I love to make 'Wacky Cake'. The wonderful make-in-the-pan-you-bake-it-in cake. This cake is made without butter and eggs. I always have the ingredients on hand. It's best with an inch of chocolate frosting. But the absolute clincher in this cake is the wonderful gooey stuff left in the bottom of the pan that only the maker of the cake gets to scrape up and eat! It's a secret passed on to children once they've LEFT the home! ;0)

The other day I re-read your post about the comfort food one eats in secret; oh there is no better guilty pleasure!! Anyway, whilst I don't qualify for the prize, I feel the need to say pie, pie & more pie! With pretty much any filling - I guess it's really just about pastry!

Anyhoo, I'm gonna look out for the book over here - thanks for bringing it to our attention. (Oh and by the way, I realised what kind of growing you meant, duh! I am so thick at times!) XX

When I think of comfort food, I think of fall and fresh season big juicy apples baked to perfection between flakey layers of my Mother’s Apple pie crust. Still warm from the oven the pie crust towers over the now softened sweet cinnamon apples. Cutting through each slice reveals the height the apples once were. The reining tower of flakey perfection is topped with sweet sparkling sugar over a drizzle of milk before baking to help hold its height and make the pie even more inviting. The smell is one to carry with you always, but the taste is beyond words. Curling up with a wonderful book as the temperatures cool and enjoying a nice slice of Mom’s Apple pie is comfort for everyone.

My favorite comfort food is definately mashed potatoes (from a box) with hamburger gravy and corn. Better if all mixed together with a couple pats of butter melting on top of the pile with little butter streams running down to form a butter river around the edge of the bowl. Mmmmmm . . . .

Homemade baked macaroni and cheese, with buttered panko or breadcrumbs on top. But in a pinch, a cup of black tea with too much cream and a little sugar, and a slice of butter laden cinnamon sugar toast.

I love your blog. Everything I have cooked from your recipes has been fantastic. I have a garden and use your recipes to cook the vegetables I grow.My favorite comfort food would be mac and cheese, but my grandmother's chicken pot pie would be a tie. She never used a recipe. She used a donut-cutter for the biscuit topping. Yummm!

December 2015 update: Hi! For some reason I can't figure out, Blogger hasn't been letting me leave comments on my own blog (!) for the last several months, so I've been unable to respond to your comments and questions. My apologies for any inconvenience! You're always welcome to email me: farmgirlfare AT gmail DOT com.

Hi! Thanks for visiting Farmgirl Fare and taking the time to write. While I'm not always able to reply to every comment, I receive and enjoy reading them all.

Your feedback is greatly appreciated, and I especially love hearing about your experiences with my recipes. Comments on older posts are always welcome!

Please note that I moderate comments, so if I'm away from the computer it may be a while before yours appears.

I try my best to answer all questions, though sometimes it takes me a few days. And sometimes, I'm sorry to say, they fall through the cracks, and for that I sincerely apologize.

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